Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T20:33:26.510Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

“False fonde bookes, ballades and rimes”: An Aspect of Informal Education in Early Modern England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Kenneth Charlton*
Affiliation:
University of London, King's College

Extract

At the Reformation the possibilities of the printed book as a means of educating members of the laity, young and adult alike, in their religious and political obligations, were quickly recognized by those in authority. But the state church soon found itself faced with the problem that perennially faces every educator who teaches his pupil a prescribed skill only to find it used for a purpose that is not approved. In this case authority faced a threefold problem. Armed with the skill of reading for itself, a literate laity would first of all be able to interpret what it read—and especially a vernacular Bible—in a possibly heterodox fashion. Secondly, it would now be able to read nonapproved productions of the printing press—and there were plenty of these. Thirdly and more importantly, it would be able to read such books and pass on such interpretations to the illiterate laity, the mass of the people, who hitherto had heard only the received word handed down by the clergy. The printing press had become, to some at least, a doubtful ally, even a political enemy. Margaret Spufford has already clearly demonstrated that there was a ready market for the wide range of “small books”—whether “godly” or “merry”—which printers were producing for a wide social spectrum of readers. Our concern here is with the negative nature of the response of those in authority to one part of that literature, “false fonde bookes, ballades and rimes,” a response which was to be found in all denominations of the Christian church, and put forward on both moral and political grounds, for layman and cleric alike saw such books as attacking the roots of social stability within a divinely ordained, hierarchical social structure.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © 1987 by the History of Education Society 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Spufford, Margaret Small Books and Pleasant Histories: Popular Fiction and Its Readership in Seventeenth-Century England (London, 1981).Google Scholar

2 Hardy, B. Carmon‘Et vocasti gentes in hereditatem tuam': Secular Knowledge and the Early Christians,“ Paedagogica Historica 8 (1968): 1941.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Cited in Duckett, Eleanor S. Alcuin, Friend of Charlemagne: His World and His Work (New York, 1951), 272.Google Scholar

4 See, for example, Erasmus's letter of 1489 (to an unidentified friend), in The Correspondence of Erasmus, vol. 1, Letters 1–141; 1484–1500, trans. Mynors, R. A. B. and Thomason, D. F. S. (Toronto, 1974), 5960. He was more cautious in De ratione studij (Moquntiae, 1521) and even more so toward the end of his life. Johan Huizinga, Erasmus of Rotterdam: With a Selection from the Letters (London, 1952), 172–73.Google Scholar

5 In Lupton, Joseph Hirst A Life of John Colet, D.D., Dean of St. Paul's and Founder of St. Paul's School (London, 1909), 279.Google Scholar

6 Calvin, John The Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Beveridge, H. 3 vols. (1536; Edinburgh, 1845), vol. 1, bk. 1, ch. 8, p. 99.Google Scholar

7 Castellion, was recommended in William Kempe, The Education of Children in Learning: Declared by the Dignitie, Utilitie, and Method Thereof (London, 1588), sig. F4 recto, and was often prescribed in the statutes of English grammar schools, e.g., Rivington (1564) and Sandwich, (1580); Kay, M. M. A. The History of Rivington and Blackrod Grammar School (Manchester, 1931), 185; and Carlisle, Nicholas A Concise Description of the Endowed Grammar Schools in England and Wales, 2 vols. (London, 1818), 1:605. Roger Ward had eight copies in stock in his Shrewsbury shop in 1585. Rodger, Alexander “Roger Ward's Shrewsbury Stock: An Inventory of 1585,” The Library, 5th ser., 13 (Dec. 1958): 253.Google Scholar

8 Ruthin statutes in Knight, L. Stanley Welsh Independent Grammar Schools to 1660 (Newtown, 1926).Google Scholar

9 Brinsley, John Ludus literarius: or, the Grammar Schoole… (London, 1612), 45, 221. Schonaeus, originally published in Cologne in 1592, was printed in London in 1595 and several times thereafter. See also Barton, John schoolmaster of Stafford, The Art of Rhetorick… out of Holy Writ… (London, 1634).Google Scholar

10 Erasmus, D. De institutio Christiani matrimonii (Basel, 1526), 716. For a statistical analysis of the earliest printings, see Robert Steele, “What Fifteenth-Century Books Are About: IV: Literature;” The Library, 2d ser., 8 (July 1907): 225–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 Vives, Juan Luis De officii mariti (Bruges, 1528), trans. Paynell, Thomas Office and Duetie of an Husband (London, 1553), sig. Ovii verso and Pviii verso.Google Scholar

12 Vives, Juan Luis De institutione foeminae Christianae (Louvain, 1523), trans. Hyrde, Richard The Instruction of a Christen Woman (London, 1530), sig. Eiv; cf. similar lists in Tyndale, William The Obedyence of a Christen Man (Antwerp, 1528), fol. xx recto; D[ering], E[dward] A Briefe and Necessary Instruction of All Householders (London, 1572), sig. Aii verso; Stockwood, John A Short Catechisme for Householders (London, 1582), sig. vi recto; and Francis Meres, Palladis Tamia; or, Wits Commonwealth (London, 1598), fol. 268 verso.Google Scholar

13 See Adams, Robert P.'Bold Bawdry and Open Manslaughter': The English New Humanist Attack on Medieval Romance,“ Huntington Library Quarterly 23 (Nov. 1959): 3348; and O'Connor, J. J. Amadis de Gaule and Its Influence on Elizabethan Literature (New Brunswick, N.J., 1970).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 Taverner, Richard The Seconde Booke of the Garden of Wysedome (London, [ca. 1545]), sig. E7 verso.Google Scholar

15 Shutte, Christopher A Verie Godlie and Necessary Sermon Preached before the Yong Countesse of Comberland… (London, 1578), sig. Dvii recto; Legate, Robert trans., A Breife Catechisme and Dialogue betwene the Husbande and His Wyfe (Wesell, 1545), sig. Aiiii recto; Rhodes, Hugh The Boke of Nurtur for Men, Seruantes and Children… ([London, 1550?]), sig. Ai verso; Kilby, Richard The Burthen of a Loaden Conscience; or, the Miserie of Sinne… ([Cambridge], 1614), 53.Google Scholar

16 Sandford, James Of the Vanitie and Uncertaintie of Artes and Sciences (London, 1569), fol. 115 verso and 98 recto-verso (Antwerp, 1530), translating Agrippa, Henrie Cornelius De incertitudine et vanitate…; William Baldwin, Canticles or Balades of Salamon (London, 1549), sig. Aiii verso, attributed the habit to “idle courtiers in princes and noblemens households.”Google Scholar

17 Ascham, Roger The Scholemaster (London, 1570), sig. Iiii recto. He had made the same point earlier in Toxophilus: The Schole of Shootinge Conteyned in Two Bookes (London, 1545), sig. Ai recto; cf. also Crosse, Henry Vertues Commonwealth; or the Highway to Honour… (London, 1603), sig. N4 recto.Google Scholar

18 See Scott, Mary A. Elizabethan Translations from the Italian (Boston, 1916); Storer, Edward trans., The Facetiae of Poggio and Other Medieval Story-Tellers (London, 1928).Google Scholar

19 Ascham, The Scholemaster, sig. Iiii verso and Iii verso. Sandford considered that “John Boccace, passing all the rest, both wonne himself the palme of bawde, chiefly in those bookes which he intituled Le Canto Novelle.” Sandford, Of the Vanitie, fol. 98 recto.Google Scholar

20 See Parks, George B.The First Italianate Englishmen,“ Studies in the Renaissance 8 (1961): 197216; and idem, “The Decline and Fall of the English Renaissance Admiration of Italy,” Huntington Library Quarterly 31 (Aug. 1968): 341–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 Turler, Jerome The Traveiler… (London, 1575), 6566 (an anonymous translation from the Latin De perigrinatione… (Argentorati, 1574).Google Scholar

22 Nashe, Thomas Pierce Penilesse, His Supplication to the Dwell… (1592) in The Works of Thomas Nashe, ed. McKerrow, Ronald B. 10 vols. (London, 1904–10), 1: 186; and Nashe, Thomas The Unfortunate Traveller; or the Life of Jacke Wilton (1594) in ibid., 2: 300.Google Scholar

23 Sommer, Heinrich Oskar ed., Le morte Darthur by Syr Thomas Malory…, 3 vols. (London, 1889–91), 1: 4. Worde, Wynkyn de in the preface to his 1489 printing of the story, urged his readers, “accustom yourself in following of these gracious knyghtly deedes, that is to say to dread God and love righteousness, faithfully and courageously to serve your sovereign prince.”Google Scholar

24 Prologue to The Historie of Kynge Blanchardin and Queen Eglantyn His Wyfe (1485), in The Prologues and Epilogues of William Caxton, ed. Crotch, Walter J. B. Early English Text Society, orig. ser., 176 (London, 1928): 104–5; see also his prologue to The Book of the Knyght of the Towre, “techyng by which al yong gentyl wymen specially may lerne to behave them self vertuously as wel in their vyrgynyte as in their wedlok and wedowhede.” Ibid., 86; cf. prefatory letter to his dedicatee, Raleigh, Sir Walter in Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene (London, 1596): “the generall end, therefore of all the booke is to fashion a gentleman or noble person in vertue and gentle discipline.”Google Scholar

25 “Epistle Dedicatorie,” in Painter, William The Palace of Pleasure Beautified, Adorned and Well Furnished with Pleasaunt Histories and Excellent Novelles Selected out of Divers Good and Commended Authors (London, 1566), sig. iii verso.Google Scholar

26 Shakespeare's, Romeo and Juliet was first performed ca. 1594–99.Google Scholar

27 Painter, William The Second Tome of the Palace of Pleasure Contayning Store of Goodlye Histories, Tragical Matters, and Other Morall Argumentes, Very Requisite for Delight and Profyte Chose and Selected out of Divers Good and Commendable Authors, and Now Once Agayn Corrected and Encreased (London, 1567), sig. ∗∗∗i verso.Google Scholar

28 Broke, Arthur in Epistle, The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet, Written First in Italian by Bandell, and Howe in Englishe by Ar. Br. (London, 1562).Google Scholar

29 Erasmus, D. Antibarbarorum liber (1520), in Collected Works of Erasmus, trans. Phillips, Margaret Mann (Toronto, 1978), 23: 96–98. Fenton, Geoffrey made the same point in justification of his translation of Matteo Bandello's novelle, entitled Certaine Tragicall Discourses… (London, 1567), “Epistle Dedicatorie.”Google Scholar

30 Cicero, De oratore, bk. 2, ch. 9, line 35; and Quintilian, De institutione oratoria, bk. 2, ch. 15, line 35. Sixteenth-century writers followed Horace, Ars poetica, 333–34, 343–44, in claiming that poetry had the double function of instructing and delighting, that examples of good and bad conduct could instruct the reader to choose virtue and eschew vices, see Philip Sidney, The Defence of Poesie (London, 1595).Google Scholar

31 Sandford, JamesTo the Reader,“ in Amorous and Tragicall Tales of Plutarch (London, 1567); see also Meres, Palladis Tamia, fol. 267 verso; Jonson, Ben Timber; or, Discoveries… (London, 1641), 42; and Heywood, Thomas Apology for Actors… (London, 1612), sig. C3.Google Scholar

32 Chappell, William and Ebsworth, Joseph W. eds., The Roxburghe Ballads, 9 vols. (Hertford, 1871–99); Ebsworth, Joseph W. The Bagford Ballads, 3 vols. (Hertford, 1876–80); Clark, Andrew ed., The Shirburn Ballads, 1585–1616 (Oxford, 1907); and Rollins, Hyder Edward ed., The Pepys Ballads, 8 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., 1929–32). A selection from the Pepys collection in Magdalene College Library, Cambridge, has been made by Roger Thompson, Samuel Pepys’ Penny Merriments… (London, 1976); see also Thompson, Roger “Samuel Pepys's Penny Merriments: A Checklist,” The Library, 5th ser., 31 (Mar. 1976): 223–34.Google Scholar

33 Madan, F.The Daily Ledger of John Dorne, 1520,” in Collectanea, ed. Fletcher, C. R. L. Oxford Historical Society, 1st ser. (Oxford, 1885), 71179. The earliest printed broadside had been used for purely ecclesiastical purposes. Duff, E. Gordon “English Fifteenth Century Broadsides,“ Transactions of the Bibliographical Society, 9 (1906–8): 211–27.Google Scholar

34 Erasmus, D. De pueris instituendis (1529), in Collected Works of Erasmus, trans. Verstraete, Beert C. (Toronto, 1985), 26: 338.Google Scholar

35 Vives, De institutione foeminae Christianae, sig. Eiv recto; Paynell, Office and Duetie of an Husband, sigs. Ovii verso, Pviii verso.Google Scholar

36 Statutes, in Carlisle, A Concise Description, 1: 161.Google Scholar

37 “Prologue,” in John Hall, The Courte of Vertu Contaynynge Many Holy or Spretuall Songes Sonettes Psalmes Ballettes Shorte Sentences as well of Holy Scriptures as Others & c (London, 1565); see also his criticism in “To the Reader,” in Certayn Chapters Taken Out of the Proverbs of Salomon wyth Other Chapters of the Holy Scripture and Certain Psalmes of Davide Translated into English Metre… (n.p., 1550); see also Fraser, Russell A. ed., The Court of Virtue, 1565 (New Brunswick, N.J., 1961).Google Scholar

38 Stubbes, Phillip The Anatomie of Abuses… (London, 1583), sig. Pv recto-verso; in his 1595 edition, Stubbes likened the reading of such material on the Sabbath to “that bloodie and murtheryng practise… the plaiying of footeball,” ibid., sig. Ti verso; cf. Webbe, William A Discourse of English Poetrie (London, 1586), sig. Cii verso, “rabble of rhyming ballet-makers.” For the alehouse, see Clark, Peter The English Alehouse: A Social History, 1200–1830 (London, 1983), ch. 7.Google Scholar

39 Chettle, Henry Kind-Harts Dreame… (London, 1592), sigs. Ci recto and Giv recto; see similar criticism of “singers of wenching ballads,” by Breton, Nicholas The Court and Country… (London, 1618), in Inedited Tracts, ed. Hazlitt, William C. (London, 1868), 181.Google Scholar

40 See Beier, A. L.Social Problems in Elizabethan London,“ Journal of Interdisciplinary History 9 (Autumn 1978): 203–21; and Beier, A. L. “Vagrants and the Social Order in Elizabethan England,” Past and Present 64 (Aug. 1974): 3–29; Muncey, R. W. Our Old English Fairs (London, 1936); Blagden, Cyprian “Notes on the Ballad Market in the Second Half of the Seventeenth Century,” Studies in Bibliography 6 (1953–54): 161–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

41 Acts of the Privy Council, new ser., vol. 1 (1542–47): 117; and cf. ibid., vol. 13 (1581–82): 389–90.Google Scholar

42 Hughes, Paul L. and Larkin, James F. eds., Tudor Royal Proclamations, 3 vols. (New Haven, Conn., 1964–69), 1: 375.Google Scholar

43 Ibid., 2: 6; see also Blagden, CyprianBook Trade Control in 1566,“ The Library, 5th ser., 13 (Sept. 1958): 287–92; and Loades, D. M. “The Theory and Practice of Censorship in Sixteenth Century England,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser., 24 (1974): 141–57.Google Scholar

44 Rollins, Hyder E.An Analytical Index to the Ballad-Entries, 1557–1760, in the Registers of the Company of Stationers of London,“ Studies in Philology 21 (Jan. 1924): 1324; see idem, “The Black-Letter Broadside Ballad,” Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 34 (1919): 258–339. Keith Wrightson estimates that over 3,000 separate ballad titles were entered at the Stationers Company between 1557 and 1709, most of them before 1675. Wrightson, Keith English Society, 1580–1680 (New Brunswick, N.J., 1982), 195. Cf. Greg, W. W. “Entrance, Licence, and Publication in the Stationers Register: Some Statistics,” The Library, 4th ser., 25 (June/Sept. 1944): 1–7, reprinted in Collected Papers, ed. Maxwell, J. C. (Oxford, 1966), 341–48. Attempts to control alehouses as places of alleged immorality and political radicalism were equally unsuccessful. Clark, English Alehouse, ch. 8.Google Scholar

45 Vaughan, William The Golden-Grove, Moralized in Three Bookes: A Worke Very Necessary for All Such, as Would Know How to Governe Themselves, Their Houses, or Their Countrey (1599; London, 1608), sig. Z7 recto. Exactly the same point had been made earlier in Robert Copland's preparatory verses to Wynkyn de Worde's edition of Geoffrey Chaucer, The Assemble of Foules (London, 1530), sig. Ai verso.Google Scholar

46 Harner, James L.'The Wofull Lamentation of Mistris Jane Shore': The Popularity of the Elizabethan Ballad,“ Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, 71 (1977): 137–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

47 Crosse, Vertues Commonwealth, sig. Oi verso; for similar lists see Dering, Briefe and Necessary Instruction, sig. Aii verso; “Epistle Dedicatorie,” in The Ancient Ecclesiasticall Histories of the First Six Hundred Yeares after Christ, Written in the Greeke Tongue by Three Learned Historiographers, Eusebius, Socrates, and Euagrius…, ed. and trans. Meredith Hanmer (London, 1585), sig. iii recto; and William Perkins's criticism in “To All Ignorant People That Desire to be Instructed,” preface to his The Foundation of Christian Religion, Gathered into Sixe Principles (London, 1595), sig. Aii verso.Google Scholar

48 See Wilson, F. P.The English Jestbooks of the Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries,“ Huntington Library Quarterly 2 (Jan. 1939): 121–58; Kahrl, F. J. “The Medieval Origins of the Sixteenth Century Jest-books,” Studies in the Renaissance 13 (1966): 166–83; Storer, The Facetiae; Zall, Paul M. A Hundred Merry Tales and other English Jestbooks of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries (Lincoln, Nebr., 1981). Many are printed in Hazlitt, W. C. ed., Shakespeare jest Books, 3 vols. (London, 1864); and Wardroper, John ed., Jest upon Jest: A Selection of the Jest Books and Collections of Merry Tales Published from the Reign of Richard III to George III (London, 1970).Google Scholar

49 The Works of Hugh Latimer, ed. Corrie, George Elwes (Cambridge, 1844), 201; Hazlitt, Shakespeare Jest Books, 1: 47–48. It was from this book that Benedick accused Beatrice of stealing her wit in Much Ado about Nothing, act 2, sc. 1.Google Scholar

50 Boorde, Andrew Brevyary of Healthe (London, 1552), chs. 163 and 329; cf. Nicholas Grimald's song “Of Mirth” in Tottell's Miscellany (1557), ed. Arber, Edward (Birmingham, 1870): “mirth can preserve the kyndly helth; mirth maketh the body quick.” The same distinction and point were also made in the prologue to Nicholas Udall, Ralph Roister Doister (1566, but written before 1553); and Twyne, Thomas The Schoolemaster, or, Teacher of Table Philosophic (London, 1576), sig. M2 ff.; cf., too, Gaspara Contarini, De officio episcopi (1516) in The Catholic Reformation: Savonarola to Ignatius Loyola: Reform in the Church, 1495–1540, trans. Olin, John C. (New York, 1969), 98: “Humour and relaxation should have a place with the day's affairs and activities so that the soul, actually made more cheerful by humour, can better engage in the performance of every duty.” For classical and medieval origins of attitudes to laughter, see Curtius, Ernst R. Excursus IV, “Jest and Earnest in Medieval Literature,” in European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, trans. Trask, Willard R. (London, 1953), 417–35.Google Scholar

51 Jonson, Ben Bartholomew Fair (1614), act 3, sc. 5.Google Scholar

52 Walton, Izaak The Compleat Angler (London, 1653), 49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

53 Burton, Robert The Anatomy of Melancholy (Oxford, 1621), 346. For a similar list for use “in fowle weather,” see Anon., The English Courtier and the Countrey Gentleman, in Inedited Tracts, ed. Hazlitt, .Google Scholar

54 Rhodes, John The Countrie Mans Comfort; or Religious Recreations, Fitte for All Well Disposed Persons (London, 1637).Google Scholar

55 Bennett, H. S. English Books and Readers, 1558–1603 (Cambridge, 1965), 147.Google Scholar

56 Spufford, Small Books, ch. 8; Morgan, John Godly Learning: Puritan Attitudes towards Reason, Learning, and Education (Cambridge, 1986).Google Scholar

57 Carr, Roger A Godly Forme of Householde Governement (London, 1598), 305, 38–39.Google Scholar

58 Dent, Arthur A Pastime for Parents (London, 1609), sig. A2 verso. There were, of course, examples of simple catechisms, as for example, that provided by Hugh Rhodes in the second edition of his Bake of Nurture (1568).Google Scholar

59 Pearson, George ed., Remains of Myles Coverdale (Cambridge, 1846), 537, 568. Cf. the subtitle of the 1562 printing of The Whole Booke of Psalmes… Very Mete to Be Used of all Sortes of People Privately for Their Solace and Comfort, Laying Apart All Ungodly Songes and Ballades Which Tends Only to the Norishing of Vyce and Corrupting of Youth.Google Scholar

60 Becon, Thomas preface to Davids Harpe… (1542) in The Worckes of T. Becon (1564), 1: sig. Ddii verso. Cf. Baldwin, Canticles or Balades of Salamon, produced so that they “might once drive out of office the bawdy ballads of lecherous love that commonly are indited and sung of idle courtiers in princes and noblemens households,” sig. Aiii verso.Google Scholar

61 They were first published in 1547 with forty-seven additional printings before 1600; see Hallett Smith, “English Metrical Psalms in the Sixteenth Century and Their Literary Significance,” Huntington Library Quarterly 9 (May 1946): 249–71; and Reid, W. R. “The Battle Hymns of the Lord: Calvinist Psalmody of the Sixteenth Century,” Sixteenth-Century Essays and Studies 2 (1971): 36–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

62 For the popularity of the “Genevan style,” see Nichols, John Gough ed., The Diary of Henry Machyn, Citizen and Merchant-Taylor of London, from A.D. 1550 to A.D. 1563 Camden Society, 42 (London, 1848), 228, 247.Google Scholar

63 Fuller, Thomas The Church History of Britain, ed. Brewer, John S. 6 vols. (Oxford, 1845), 4: 73–74.Google Scholar

64 Robinson, Hastings ed., The Zurich Letters…, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1842–45), 1: 71.Google Scholar

65 As for example at East Retford, 1552 (Carlisle, Concise Description, 2: 282); Rivington, 1566 (Kay, History, 183); Stephen, Kirkby 1566 (Carlisle Concise Description, 2: 716); de la Zouch, Ashby 1567 (Levi Fox, A Country Grammar School: A History of Ashby de la Zouch Grammar School through Lour Centuries, 1567–1967 [Oxford, 1967], 129); Hawkeshead, 1588 (Ayre, J. ed., The Sermons of Edwin Sandys [Cambridge, 1842], 443).Google Scholar

66 Hooper, John A Declaration of Christe and of His Office (Zurich, 1547), sig. Ki verso–ii recto; Stockwood, A Short Catechisme for Householders, sig. vi recto; and cf. Bownde, Nicholas The Doctrine of the Sabbath (London, 1595), 242; Dering, Briefe and Necessary Instruction, sig. Aii recto-verso.Google Scholar

67 Overbury, Thomas Characters (1614, and many times enlarged and reprinted), in The Overburian Characters…, ed. Paylor, Wilford J. (Oxford, 1936), 43; cf. Greene, Robert A Quip for an Upstart Courtier (London, 1592); and The Myrrour of Princely Deedes and Knighthood, trans. Tyler, Margaret (London, 1578).Google Scholar

68 Cavendish, Margaret Lucas Sociable Letters (London, 1664), 39; Burton, Robert Anatomy of Melancholy (Oxford, 1621), 581, had made the same point about “silly gentlewomen,” though Fynes Moryson, An Itinerary… (London, 1617), 14–15, had recommended the reading of Amadis de Gaule in the original for precisely the reason Margaret Cavendish deplored “for the knights Errant and the Ladies of Courts doe therein exchange courtly speches.”Google Scholar

69 Greene, Douglas G. ed., The Meditations of Lady Elizabeth Delaval: Written between 1662 and 1671, Surtees Society, 190 (Durham, 1978), 32. Lady Elizabeth was born in 1649. Croker, T. Crofton ed., Autobiography of Mary, Countess of Warwick (London, 1848), 21.Google Scholar

70 Costes, Gaultier de Casandra: A Romance (London, 1652); and idem, Hymen's Praeladia: or Love's Masterpiece, Being the First Part of Cleopatra (London, 1653–56); Madeleine de Scudery, Artamenes or the Grand Cyrus (London, 1653); d'Urfé, Honoré Astrea: A Romance (London, 1657).Google Scholar

71 More Smith, G. C. ed., The Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple (Oxford, 1928), 254, 275; Boate, Arnold The Character of a Trulie Vertuous and Pious WomanMistris Margaret Dungan (Wife to Doctor Arnold Boate) (Paris, 1651), 41; Pepys, Samuel Diary, 7 Dec. 1660.Google Scholar

72 Marston, John Dutch Courtezan, act 4, sc. 1; Jonson, Ben Eastward Hoe, act 5, sc. 1; idem, The New Inn, act 1, sc. 6; Massinger, Philip The Guardian, act 1, sc. 2; Beaumont, Francis The Knight of the Burning Pestle, act 2.Google Scholar

73 Read, Conyers Mr. Secretary Cecil and Queen Elizabeth (New York, 1955), 114; Snow, Vernon F. “An Inventory of the Lord General's Library, 1646,” The Library, 5th ser., 21 (June 1966): 115–23; Hotson, Leslie “The Library of Elizabeth's Embezzling Teller,” Studies in Bibliography 2 (1949), 49–61; Overall, R. F. “Brian Twyne's Library,” Oxford Bibliographical Society Publications, new ser., 4 (1950), 3–42; Dickins, Bruce “Henry Gostling's Library: A Young Don's Books in 1674,” Transactions of Cambridge Bibliographical Society, 3 (1961): 218; Owen, Hugh Stanhope, Atkinson, Haddon, and Shaw: Four North Country Families (Chichester, 1985), 41–42; Francis Kirkman, The Unlucky Citizen (London, 1673), 10–12.Google Scholar

74 Milton, John An Apology for Smectymnuus (1642), in Complete Prose Works of John Milton, ed. Wolfe, D. M. (New Haven, 1953), 1: 890–91. Cf. a similar recollection of the Puritan preacher Vavasor Powell, The Life and Death of Mr. Vavasor Powell (London, 1671), 1–3.Google Scholar

75 Keeble, N. H. ed., The Autobiography of Richard Baxter (London, 1974), 517; cf. Sibbes, Richard The Bruised Reede and Smoaking Flax: Some Sermons Contracted out of the 12 of Matth. 20 (London, 1630). Baxter describes these “tempting books [as]… the very poison of Youth.” Baxter, Richard Treatise of Self-Denyall (London, 1660), ch. 22.Google Scholar

76 Bunyan, John A Few Sighs from Hell or the Groans of a Damned Soul (London, 1658), 156–57. Contrast Montaigne's rather smug report that in his childhood he “did not even know their names, and I still do not their substance so strict was my discipline.” “Of the Education of Children,” in The Complete Works of Montaigne (1458), ed. and trans. Frame, Donald M. (Stanford, Calif., 1958), 130; and cf. the essay “Of Books,” ibid., 298.Google Scholar

77 Dobson, R. B. and Taylor, J. Rymes of Robin Hood: An Introduction to the English Outlaw (London, 1976); cf. Hilton, R. H. “The Origins of Robin Hood,” Past and Present 14 (Nov. 1958): 30–44; Holt, J. C. “The Origins and Audience of the Ballads of Hood, Robin “ibid., 18 (Nov. 1960): 89–110; and Holt, J. C. Robin Hood (London, 1982); Keen, Maurice H. The Robin Hood Tradition in the English Renaissance (Salzburg, 1973); Bellamy, John G. Robin Hood: An Historical Enquiry (London, 1985).Google Scholar

78 Charles, C. Mish's distinction between upper-class reading of “the artistically and culturally more advanced romance,” such as Philip Sidney's Arcadia and a “culturally retarded” middle-class reading of Amadis and Palmerin is surely no longer to be maintained. Mish, Charles C.Black Letter as a Social Discriminant in the Seventeenth Century,“ Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 68 (June 1953): 627–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

79 Sidney, Philip An Apologie for Poetrie (London, 1595), sigs. E4 verso-F1 recto.Google Scholar